American Catholic priests are becoming more conservative, even as their flocks are becoming more liberal.
U.S. Catholic bishops elected conservative leaders last month, continuing to resist a push from Pope Francis to put social issues such as climate change and poverty on par with the bishops’ declared priority of opposing abortion.
The U.S. hierarchy’s orientation reflects the wider trend of an American clergy with values at odds with those of an increasingly liberal laity and a pope who has encouraged the questioning of once-taboo subjects and leniency on some teachings of sexual morality.
Research on Catholic clergy by the Austin Institute has found that younger Catholic priests and priests ordained in more recent years tend to be noticeably more conservative than older priests on a host of issues, including politics, theology and moral teaching. The Survey of American Catholic Priests has found that since the 1980s, successive cohorts of priests have grown more conservative, according to a 2021 summary report.
Regarding the church’s prohibitions of contraception, masturbation, homosexual behavior and suicide, the impossibility of women’s ordination to the priesthood, and the necessity for salvation of faith in Jesus, each successive 10-year cohort of priests supports church teaching more strongly than the one before it. Those ordained in 2010 or later are the most conservative of all—and the least happy with Pope Francis, with roughly half disapproving of him, according to the Austin Institute survey.
“People are looking for answers and stability,” said the Rev. Daniel Hess, who was ordained in 2011 and is dean of students at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary and School of Theology in Cincinnati. “There actually is a treasury of teachings and of truths and of deeply Catholic content that is part of our inheritance that was not even shown to us or known, and it’s sort of being rediscovered. So I think in some ways that leads to a certain traditionalism or conservative approach.”
While young priests hold on to tradition, Catholic laity have been moving in a more liberal direction. A 2021 survey for America magazine by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University found that more than 52% supported the ordination of women as priests, 62% said priests should be allowed to bless same-sex relationships and only 38% were very or somewhat opposed to euthanasia or assisted suicide.
The contrast is even sharper between young priests and their lay contemporaries. Thirty-five percent of millennial Catholics have considered leaving the church because of its teaching on LGBT issues, the CARA survey found.
American priests’ gradual return to tradition started in response to the liberal ferment of the 1960s….
St. John Paul II, who was elected pope in 1978, tempered the modernizing changes that followed the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65 by reasserting traditional doctrine. He ordered investigations of U.S. seminaries, seeking to ensure orthodoxy in the curriculum.
John Paul also inspired a generation of young men to join the clergy, said Brad Vermurlen, a sociologist at the University of Texas at Austin who has studied the 2021 survey.
The Rev. Peter Hannah, a member of the Dominican order from California who was ordained in 2014, said that for many young clergy “John Paul II was a prophetic voice in the wilderness of modern secularism…an incredible inspiration and saint.”
Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego, a leading liberal among U.S. bishops, said Pope Benedict XVI’s warnings against what he called the “dictatorship of relativism” in modern culture inspired many priests ordained in the past decade and a half to preach a faith based on definitive truths.
The Rev. Benjamin Petty, who was ordained in 2019 and serves as campus chaplain at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., said, “Today’s society has this aggressive sense of nothing’s really true unless you make it up yourself.” He added, “So the church and her teaching and her consistency and moral voice is this place of stability, place of security, place of safety to receive something good and old….”
Such attitudes distinguish those priests from Pope Francis, views of whom vary sharply by age. Almost 80% of priests ordained before 1980 “approve strongly” of the current pontiff, compared with 20% of those ordained in 2010 or later, according to the 2021 survey. Nearly half of the younger priests disapprove of the pope, either “strongly” or “somewhat….”
Father Hannah said the pope has made waves that unsettle many of his fellow priests. “There’s a desire for more clarity, more stability, while we still fully respect the office of the papacy,” he said….
The Rev. Nathan Rueb, a priest in Kansas City, Mo., who was ordained in 2019, said, “I’m not going to tell you whom to vote for. ” Father Rueb supports the decision of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, opposed by a minority of liberals including Cardinal McElroy, to declare objection to abortion their pre-eminent priority.
“I really don’t know any priests at all who would disagree,” Father Rueb said. “Babies in the womb are the most defenseless members of society…How can I help them if they’re born into poverty if they’re not even born into poverty?”
The above comes from a Dec. 18 story by Francis X. Rocca in the Wall Street Journal.
It’s not clear from the article (or at least from these excerpts, as the article is behind the WSJ pay wall), whether the statement “Catholic laity have been moving in a more liberal direction” refers to Mass-going Catholics, or those who merely ‘identify as Catholic’ or the many “raised Catholic”, but otherwise have not been recently sighted in a church building. That distinction (and the corresponding poll numbers) would be helpful. I doubt the divergence between younger priests and actual congregations is as wide as suggested here.
That’s a great photo. And, I remember them from the Walk for Life West Coast. Under the leadership of Archbishop Cordileone, and with the help of trustees like Bishop Thomas Daly, Saint Patrick’s is an excellent seminary.
But not good enough for San Jose seminarians, who attend Chicago.
Pray that Bishop Cantu brings the San Jose seminarians back to Saint Patrick’s. And, you can always contact him about that. One question frequently asked is how long will it take Cardinal Cupich to ruin Mundelein. Many years ago St. Patrick’s was known as The Pink Palace. Maybe Mundelein will soon take that title. The “shepherd” of the San Jose seminarians formation loves to make LGBTQ+ news. From a LGBTQ site: A top U.S. cardinal, Elton John, and LGBTQ Catholics worldwide are all weighing in on the Vatican’s recent ban on blessings for same-gender unions, often with negative appraisals about an action they see as causing much harm. Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago released a statement on Monday stating that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s responsum ad dubium on the question of such blessings “needs to be read in the context of the teachings in the Catechism and the encouraging statements of Pope Francis to LGBTQ persons.” This interpretation includes acknowledging the Congregation’s recognition that same-gender couples exhibit positive elements. Cupich continued:“Yet, the understandable reaction among many to this response will be disappointment. This should prompt us in the Church and in the archdiocese to redouble our efforts to be creative and resilient in finding ways to welcome and encourage all LGBTQ people in our family of faith.” Why can’t we simply be Catholics without a letter or adjective? Love, respect and honesty go a long way. The Church cannot bless sin because God never blesses sin.
This author does not see things from a Catholic perspective at all.
Another scandal: Fr. Rupnik, S.J. Yet he’s still a priest? No punishment?
Hooray for these good, young priests, but I’ve stopped trying to convince my relatives who have left the church that they should go back to Mass. Sex abuse and hierarchical corruption stories come out every six months or so. There’s always another shoe waiting to drop. It never ends. And parish life is abysmal in most parishes.
I’ve even entertained scenarios in which I stop attending Mass.
Maybe instead of trying to convince them to return to Mass, you could ask them what their thoughts on the Eucharist, God’s Will, proper response to another’s sin, and what they want from a parish.
Do not stop attending Mass unless you have a serious reason (dangerous weather conditions, illness, care of an ill person or infant) or unless you have a dispensation.
The Sacred Heart of Jesus longs to see you. He can come to you. He is everywhere. And you can pray anywhere. But only at Catholic Mass can you be in His Real Presence and receive Him if you are in a state of grace.
Prayer in community is more efficacious than prayer alone.
Reacquaint yourself and your family with the true purpose of Mass.
Remember, His apostles fled when He was in trouble. His Mother and St. John and a few others stayed.
Jesus’ earthly life was filled with rejection and abandonment.
Liberal vs. conservative?
Really?
No Catholic should even think like that.
I see this is from a secular newspaper.
Catholics talk about progressive (usually meaning someone who wants to change the church by having some sins like birth control or gay marriage allowed) and traditional (usually means wanting the Church to remain firm in its teaching.
Everything else is just degrees (environmentalism, care of creation-we all should do that; pro-life-we all should do that; care of the poor-we all should do that; care of souls-we all should do that). Nobody should fight over it. People are at varying degrees of knowledge and understanding. You can instruct the ignorant but you should not condemn others for their ignorance or even bad decision making. They are working it out. They have a guardian angel, too.
So these priests may be more traditional in that they resist progressivism with more determination than some others.